Conduit Hldg Regulatory News (CRE)

27 Sep 2007 07:03

Creston PLC27 September 2007 27 September 2007 Creston plc Pre-close trading statement Creston plc, the Insight and Communications Group, issues the following tradingupdate for the six month period to 30 September 2007 in advance of announcingits interim results on 30 November. The Board has been pleased with the number and size of the new business wins,which have demonstrated the quality and industry standing of the Groupcompanies. New client wins across the Group include Alton Towers, Capital One,Freeview, GlaxoSmithKline, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Pricerunner.co.uk,Royal Mail, Smart cars and Telstra. In addition to these wins, there have been major new project and brand wins fromexisting clients such as AstraZeneca, Capital Radio, Infinti from Nissan, directmarketing consultancy for Numico in Austria and Thailand, Opel, Roche, SainsburyBank from Sainsbury's, Slim Fast from Unilever, Vauxhall, and Sunbites fromWalkers Crisps. Cross-selling between Creston's operating companies has also been verysuccessful in the period with new projects being won from several clientsincluding AstraZeneca, Morrisons, Servier, Stihl and Toshiba. The Board is confident that the wins will maintain a similar like for likerevenue growth that was reported at 12% for the first quarter. Digital and on-line projects continue to grow as a proportion of revenues and wehave increased our investment in specialist staff to match this development.This necessary investment will have a very minor impact on first half operatingmargin. The balance sheet is strong and we have substantial unutilised bank facilities.The Board retains the flexibility to settle earn out liabilities predominantlyin cash and loan notes rather than the issue of shares, as was demonstrated inthe settlement of the two earn outs in June of this year, which were 100% inloan notes. The Group has continued to perform well in the first half of the yeardemonstrating its ability to deliver growth as a diversified Insight andCommunications Group. The new business pipeline continues to be strong withmajor pitches planned across all companies and we are confident that oursuccessful pitch to win ratio will ensure a positive impact for the rest of thefinancial year. For further information, please contact: Creston plc Tel: 020 7930 9757Don Elgie, Chief ExecutiveBarrie Brien, COO & CFOwww.creston.com Hogarth Partnership Limited Tel: 020 7357 9477Chris Matthews / Sarah Macleod / Sarah Richardson This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange